Feb 9, 2014 - Swagger

Not "SWAGGA!"  But, instead, a  book called "Swagger" by Lisa Bloom.

The author wrote the book in response to thug culture - the messages that boys get about not showing or sharing emotion, that reacting is better than thinking, that men should dominate, that money is life's ultimate object.

She did a lot of research. Some of it was reading other people's work, some was her own field interviews of young men. She talks a lot about the absence of fathers in kids' lives, the terrible statistics about single moms' kids.  She's a single mom herself, so she knows the gig.  The thesis is something you might expect: turn off the TV, engage with your kids, read with them, do sports or outdoors things with them, teach them how to respect others.  The end of the book is a plea for men especially to reach out to kids who don't have good male role models.

Some interesting things about this point in history: girls are overwhelmingly valedictorians, more girls graduate from college than boys, boys are increasingly more likely than girls to live in poverty and stay there, etc, etc, etc.  She paints a really grim picture.  It is something I was aware of, and I think my kids are rather insulated from it.  My kids are growing up in an affluent, educated, stable, 2-parent household.  We spend time together, and I count my kids as my friends. We don't watch TV, and our musical choices skew far away from violence and sexuality. I understand, at the same time, that many kids are not in the same situation that mine are in. I'm unsure what to do about it - I do some volunteering through church, and I wonder what else I can add into my priority list to help a boy who needs someone who cares.

In completely different news, we lost 2 trees yesterday. The dead ash that has worried us consistently since we moved in is finally gone, as well as a huge oak tree that leaned away from the house but was rotten to its core. I stood where it used to stand this morning, and it looks like there's a hole in the sky. I now have a bunch of wood splitting to do (the dead tree is dry and seasoned), and several hours of work with the chainsaw to cut up the large tree so it will season better.

Yeah, that's a guy in the top of the tree. He has a pole saw and a chainsaw clipped to his belt, a gris-gris he uses to rappel, spiked attachments for his boots, and chutzpah by the bushel. He's probably 60' in the air there, as he cut down the smaller-diameter branches. He brought the tree down to 30-40' and just the trunk before he cut it at the base to bring it down.

If you look closely at the last picture, you can see an open area in the trunk. It goes most of the way through the tree, and it close to 10' tall. It certainly needed to come down, so I'm very glad it's done. No more worries on that front.

The tree in the driveway had a very high potential to fall toward the power lines that come into the driveway. I dreaded a week without power. On a similar vein, I now have all the materials I need to properly hook our generator to the house AC box. The house has an older, lower-amperage generator hookup under the front porch (I discovered this by accident putting up the Christmas lights). Our generator has a newer plug style (L14), and can put out some serious amperage. I needed some 10-gauge wire, a proper house-side receptacle, and a proper generator cable. All are now in hand. An afternoon of work, and we'll be all set.   Worst case, I'll do it when we lose power - flip off the main breaker, get the job done, get power back. No worries. But if I'm wise I'll do it earlier.

Next books on my list: finish reading "The Book Thief" with Katrina. "Outliers" by Gladwell, "Managing Change" by John Cotter, "The 360 Degree Leader", and "Divergent" (fiction by Veronica Roth).